Amazon Just Had Its Biggest Prime Day Ever. But This Year, It’s Not Hyping That Up
Each year Amazon has held Prime Day, the retailer has touted that the savings event shattered prior Black Friday or company sales records. But this year, Amazon took a different tack in its annual announcement on results from the shopping event, playing up how small businesses benefited from Prime Day instead. The change comes as Amazon faces intense scrutiny from lawmakers about its power over independent merchants that sell goods through its website and other tactics that critics argue stifle competition. Amazon said in a press release Thursday that Prime Day, a two-day event that took place earlier this week marked the “two biggest days ever” for small and medium-sized businesses. Prime Day usually takes place in July but was rescheduled this year due to the coronavirus. Read more at CNN Business.
I commented yesterday, and predicted that I would be the only one commenting on this. So far, sadly, I’m right. I live in a dream world that features a united front of retailers that push back HARD against the juggernaut of Amazon, demanding anti-trust action, demanding legislation that reverses the governmental hands-off approach that gave Amazon their leg up. I expect unity, and am perpetually disappointed that I am the only one that voices my concerns, or that may the only one that even cares at all.
It was an awful story before the pandemic. Meteoric growth, garnering more and more market share, year after year. As we all were shut down (in Michigan’s case, for about 80 days), Amazon soared even higher, and through their Prime Days, is up 68%. Stock price through the roof, and poised to achieve surreal levels through the holidays, while we will be hard pressed because Covid is actually showing alarming signs of spread instead of fading away.
People characterize my alarm as “fighting city hall”, or “tilting at wind mills”, meaning “oh, well, what are ya gonna do?” with a shrug (and a click). But here, among colleagues, I have reason to think that there might be some resonance, and conversely, I have reason to be critical of our industry for being so insistent on HELPING Amazon kill us all.
Vendors that allow their products to be sold in any way, shape of form on Amazon are killing the rest of the retailers that have built their brands. Along with selling direct, the are betting BIG against brick and mortar. Retailers that buy ANYTHING from Amazon are making a conscious decision to feed the monster that is hell bent on owning all commerce in this country, and charging a steep commission to anyone that deludes themselves into thinking they have a chance.
I refuse any support at all, EVER. No Whole Foods, no Amazon Streaming, no ANYTHING, not one dime. I am among a tiny, tiny minority that sees the rise of Amazon as The Matrix coming true. Their old tag line was The Everything Store, and they MEAN it. Drugs, medical services, medical equipment, insurance, auto sales, transportation, space endeavors, food, delivery service (they will exceed UPS and FedEx by 2022), movie production, and of course, EVERYTHING that can be delivered to our doors in days or hours. They OWN the gaming streaming business, and virtually every governmental security agency uses their web platform. They paid no state taxes for decades, they’ve been treated with kid gloves and given green lights for everything they want to do. There have been so few governmental champions against Amazon as to be essentially zero. It’s pathetic. It’s criminally inept.
The Institute for Local Self Reliance (ILSR.org) IS a champion against Amazon, and their reporting and research IS responsible for getting Congress to issue a very damning report on Amazon. They are a huge wind in my sails, giving me SOME solace that all is not lost. Breaking up 1.6 TRILLION dollar Amazon is paramount, urgent, crisis-level important. ILSR is also a staunch defender of all things local and independent, and everyone reading this should be connected to them, and contribute to their coffers because without them, we have NO advocates.
I know how shrill this all sounds to most of you. From my perspective, I am nowhere NEAR loud enough. It would be impossible for me to overstate the threat to the entire system of commerce in the USA. It is happening as we speak, it is not a theory, it is a nightmare, and all the more so because two thirds of America are Prime customers, and most everyone else can’t wait to click for their next purchase, utterly indifferent to the effects on their communities as more and more and more capital is sucked out of every local economy in the nation, to Seattle and shareholders.
As long as I’m angry, I’m OK. I dread the concept of acceptance. You CAN fight City Hall, by the way.